PLAY700 CarBot Modified to Track Black Line and Avoid Frontal Obstacle
(By C.N. Thai)
The original PLAY700 CarBot design allows the user to access the Power Button on the CM-50 Controller from the top of the robot. This is a great design feature for user-friendliness, but the NIR Sensors were unfortunately blocked by the Bumper structure, as these sensors were on the same side as the Power Button, and therefore they were rendered “useless”.
(Courtesy of ROBOTIS)
My modified CarBot version exposed the Power Button and the NIR Sensors to the Bottom side of the CarBot. Thus, the Center NIR Sensor would now “look” forward to detect any obstacle along the robot’s path, while the Left and Right NIR Sensors would now “look” down to detect the potential Black Track.
Please note that the Bumper structure also had to be redesigned slightly to accommodate for the physical widening of the Center NIR beam as it propagated forward, so as to prevent the bot from “always” detecting the Bumper as an “obstacle in its path”. Thus the Bumper opened “upwards” like a cone. The car hood also had to be redesigned and now had a smaller slope.
This YouTube video showed how to program this Modified CarBot to negotiate an arbitrary Black Track and to avoid a frontal obstacle by turning right until the bot saw the Black Track again.